Micro data centers: The Perfect Choice for Edge Computing

With the explosion of connected devices and data applications, bandwidth, latency and processing speed are becoming big concerns. It’s hard to keep up with the fast pace of business if your data can’t keep up.

This is becoming an even greater concern as more devices are connecting —from machine to machine (M2M), Industrial Internet of Things, augmented reality to smart cars.

While wearables, for example, still have a low adoption rate, sales are expected to surge: IDC expects 45.7 million wearable tech gadgets to ship globally this year, spurred by the Apple Watch, Samsung Gear and Motorola Moto 360, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, published March30, 2015.

This growing quantity of data will need to be processed and analyzed in real time, having a transformational effect on the data center market and the technologies needed to support it.

To deal with latency issues, businesses are looking for new ways to grow their on-premise digital infrastructure in the most economical way possible.

That’s why we’re seeing the emergence of edge computing platforms, which will distribute computing loads closer to devices (such as a smartphones, tablets or sensors), resulting in reduced latency. The architecture of the future will likely have several variations; it could be a gateway or embedded device, or it could be a micro data center.

For industries where there’s a need to share and analyze growing amounts of data — such as retail, manufacturing and telecommunications — a micro data center makes a lot of sense. It’s essentially a “plug and play” data center, making it ideal for private clouds and converged IT systems.

If you need to reduce latency, add capacity quickly, enable secure ongoing management or boost reliability through standardization and factory testing, consider a micro data center. As an added bonus, you could minimize IT installation and operating costs — including a possible price per watt reduction of 50 percent.

According to Gartner, Inc., “Apply a Self-Contained Solution to Micro Data Centers,” David Cappuccio Document #G00268769; “Localized or micro data centers are a fact of life, but by applying a self-contained, scalable and remotely managed solution and process, CIOs can reduce costs, improve agility, and introduce new levels of compliance and service continuity.”

So how does it work? A micro data center is a self-contained computing environment, which includes all necessary power, cooling, security and associated management tools. And it includes all the storage, processing and networking necessary to run customer applications.

“Creating micro data centers is something companies have done for years, but often in an ad hoc manner. By partnering with vendors, and creating a consistent and standardized architecture, enterprises can regain control of these critical assets, and increase the ability to rapidly introduce site-specific services, while reducing risks and operational costs, and improving service levels.” – Gartner, “Apply a Self-Contained Solution to Micro Data Centers”, David Cappuccio Document #G00268769.

The business world is changing, and fast. That’s why we’re launching the industry’s largest portfolio of prefabricated micro data center solutions to help our customers — whether enterprise, SMB or co-location — meet these new data growth requirements. They’re engineered to order, and assembled and tested in a Schneider Electric facility, so you can be ready for any connectivity demand.

For more information, visit http://www.schneider-electric.com/b2b/en/solutions/system/s3/data-center-network-systems-micro-data.jsp